Latest / The Feed & The Thread / The Feed & The Thread - November 9, 2026

Transcript

The Feed & The Thread - November 9, 2026 · The Feed & The Thread

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  A CEO is drowning in a thousand pull requests a day. That's
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  internal DDoS, not productivity. The bottleneck isn't code, it's
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  the missing judgment on what to ship.
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  Welcome to The Feed and The Thread, brought to you by
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  Chicago Camps. The Feed & The Thread is available online at
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  feed and thread dot com to submit your feeds, or download
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  pocket.
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  AI made building software faster, but it didn't make
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  deciding what to build smarter. We're now facing a bottleneck of
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  intent, where speed has outpaced strategy. Jeff Gothelf at his
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  blog argues in "How to turn 1000 pull requests a day into the few
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  your customers need" that the crisis is a failure of judgment,
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  not a lack of code. He points to a CEO handling a thousand pull
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  requests daily, a symptom he calls internal DDoS. The ease of
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  AI has shifted the question from "can we build this" to "should
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  we build this." Democratizing the answer is the necessary next
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  step. That shift moves the burden from engineering to
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  product thinking. Vlad Derdeicea interviews Christian
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  Crumlish in "Five pairs of hands: what the typesetters can
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  teach designers about AI" to draw a parallel between
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  typesetters and modern designers. Crumlish explains how
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  desktop publishing merged distinct roles into one, causing
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  resistance due to identity loss. We're in that same in-between
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  phase now, where teams are consolidating roles. The fear of
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  replacement is actually a fear of role evolution. Designers
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  must be ready to cover more ground. Wira Indra Kusuma
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  writes in "Before you ship your Wrapped this year" about the
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  pressure to ship year-end recaps. Five major platforms
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  launched similar features in three weeks, creating a default
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  expectation. Teams are now arguing over micro-copy details
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  to match Spotify's two hundred million user benchmark. If you
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  collect usage data, the market expects you to visualize it.
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  This trend turns a marketing stunt into a mandatory UX
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  standard. Other reads available from Rosenfeld Media on UX
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  research sessions and UX Design.cc on context as the new
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  UI.
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  Today's discussions circle a familiar tension. We have the
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  tools to execute quickly, yet we're still wrestling with the
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  fundamental questions of what to build and why. It's less about
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  speed, and more about whether we actually understand the intent
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  behind the work. Over on r/Design, a computer science
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  major is asking if an eye for design is something you're born
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  with, or a skill you can learn. They're frustrated that their
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  prototypes look bare bones, despite the effort they've put
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  in. This hits close to home because too many creatives
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  believe that design is a mysterious, unteachable art. But
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  it isn't. Design is a systematic discipline. It's about
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  understanding structure, hierarchy, and user needs. If
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  you treat it as a craft rather than a gift, you can build the
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  eye through practice and feedback. In the same
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  subreddit, a student is seeking advice for a class project,
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  asking experienced graphic designers about their biggest
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  mistakes and future predictions. The question is broad, but it
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  reveals a deeper anxiety. We often look to veterans for
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  permission to struggle. We want to know that the path isn't
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  linear, and that uncertainty is a normal part of the process.
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  It's a reminder that expertise doesn't mean you have all the
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  answers, just that you've learned how to ask better
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  questions. Here is one that caught my attention. Someone is
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  analyzing airport wayfinding colors, specifically why Haneda
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  Airport uses green for transfers, while Dubai uses red.
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  It's a small detail, but it highlights how regional
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  differences create cognitive load for travelers. Effective
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  signage has to function under high stress and language
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  barriers. This is a great example of how context matters.
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  A color choice that works in one culture might confuse people in
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  another. It's a subtle but critical part of user experience
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  design. We also saw a designer sharing their concept for a
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  brand called Aoao, which blends Guaraní mythology with a modern
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  aesthetic. They're using AI to generate logo sketches, and
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  they're looking for feedback on the overall identity. This is
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  where the intent bottleneck shows up. AI can generate
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  visuals fast, but it doesn't understand the cultural weight
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  or the story behind the brand. The designer has to bring the
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  strategy, the meaning, and the human connection to the table.
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  The tool is just a brush, not the painter. Finally, a student
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  in Italy is asking for help creating a science magazine for
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  a school project. They're unsure about tool selection and layout
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  organization. They're comparing platforms like Canva and Marq,
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  but they lack the experience to decide which is best for a
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  professional look. This is a common entry point for many
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  designers. We all start somewhere, and the tools are
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  just the beginning. Organizing information so it's clear,
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  accessible, and engaging requires distinct skill.
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  Today's discussions show that we're not just building faster,
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  we're trying to build smarter. The tools are changing, but the
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  core of design remains the same. It's about understanding people,
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  solving problems, and making sense of a complex world.
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  The Feed and The Thread is brought to you by Chicago Camps.
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  For a weekly and monthly exploration of the patterns and
• 5:00
  signals across UX, you can also check out Patterns and Signals
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  at the website patterns and signals dot com. Chicago Camps
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  will have more events in 2027. You can submit to be a speaker
• 5:09
  at a future event at Chicago Camps dot org.
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  There is a specific number that stuck in my head today, and it's
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  not about the code, it's about the judgment. Gothelf describes
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  a CEO handling one thousand pull requests a day, which he calls
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  internal DDoS, and that metric is terrifying because it implies
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  we've solved the production problem while completely
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  abandoning the decision-making problem. I think that framing
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  is a bit of a trap, though. We treat speed as the enemy here,
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  but we lack a shared language for what "intent" actually looks
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  like in a team. When you look at the thread about the Aoao brand,
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  that designer is using AI to generate sketches of Guaraní
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  mythology, but the tool doesn't understand the cultural weight.
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  The speed is irrelevant if the meaning is missing, so the
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  bottleneck is the lack of a standard for how we validate
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  that meaning before we ship. That's where I'd push back
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  slightly, because if we rely on every individual designer to
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  carry the burden of cultural validation, we're just moving
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  the bottleneck around. The systemic issue is that our tools
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  optimize for output rather than strategy. We're treating the
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  "what to build" question as a side effect of the "how to
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  build" process, but the data from the Wrapped trend shows
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  that once the market expects a feature, the intent becomes a
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  checkbox. We need to decouple the generation of work from the
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  validation of work, and right now, our workflows don't support
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  that separation. But I'd argue that decoupling them is exactly
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  what's breaking. You can't validate in a vacuum. The reason
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  we're seeing this chaos is that we're trying to apply a pre-AI
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  workflow to an AI-speed environment. The typesetters
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  lost their identity when desktop publishing merged their roles,
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  and we're seeing the same thing now. The fear is that we're
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  doing the wrong kind of work. The shift needs to be from
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  "managing tickets" to "curating outcomes," and that requires us
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  to change how we measure success, not just how we
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  generate it. So the practical implication is that judgment
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  needs to be a deliverable. If we can't articulate the intent
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  behind the thousand requests, we shouldn't be generating them.
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  Exactly. The skill that matters now is the ability to define the
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  problem clearly enough that the solution is obvious, because the
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  tool will find the path, but only you can decide where it's
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  going.
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  That's The Feed and The Thread for today. We'll catch you next
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  time!